Swampstuck
by JadeFoxx
Summary: Jade Harley and her three friends are taking a fun road trip when their car breaks down in the middle of nowhere. Luckily, they find shelter in the home of an elderly man who lives by a swamp on the mountain. But once the man takes his leave, things start to get weird. Based off of the Japanese game "Mermaid Swamp." Expect a little implied DaveJade. Rated for some minor gore.
1. Chapter 1

John had insisted that going over the mountains would be much quicker than taking the road around them, but I wasn't so sure. In fact, I think we were lost.

We were on our way to Portland for a video game convention with Rose and Dave. The three of us had all flown out to stay with John at his home in Washington the day before and set out on the road this morning. It was shaping up to be a super fun weekend, until we got on this road taking us through the forested top of this mountain. It felt like we had been driving here for hours!

And apparently, I wasn't the only one who felt this way. Dave sighed and kicked his feet up on to the dashboard. "Bro, either we've been driving in circles or we passed through some fuckin' weird twilight zone-esque portal. Like, I'm expecting Rod Serling to pop out from behind one of those trees with his smug know-it-all grin and start spouting off shit about the fifth dimension."

John glanced over at Dave's sneakers resting on the dashboard and reached over with one hand and swatted at them. "Hey! Careful! I don't want you scuffing up my dad's car with your dirt laced shoes!"

Dave scoffed. "Man, so many chicks would be begging me to let them kiss these feet. Like, they line up around the block daily just to even get a small peep at these bad boys. There's like weeping and gnashing of teeth and all kinds of crazy shit going on when the ladies fight over who gets to plant a wet one on my sparkling sneaks."

Rose and I giggled at his ridiculous tale from the backseat. Dave was so silly sometimes!

"Perhaps there is vast weeping and gnashing of teeth because of the great odor emitting from your feet. The ladies are surely fighting with the hopes that it is not they who must be selected for the daily tortuous task of pressing her lips to the feet of one Dave Strider. It is truly a gruesome affair." Rose suggested.

Dave turned around in his seat and was about to say something when John spoke up again.

"Argh! Guys…I think we are lost! I have no idea where I am going anymore!" he proclaimed.

I rolled my eyes. "Well I could have told you that, John! Why didn't you just bring a GPS?"

I could see his face turning a little red in the rear view mirror. "I, uh, I've driven this way before and never had any trouble so I just figured it would be no big deal to do it again."

Dave pulled out his iPhone and opened up Google Maps. "I can't get a satellite pickup out here.." He said.

"We must be in a bad spot – too many trees, too much mountain and not enough wireless towers around." I stated.

Shortly after that the car began to slow down.

"What's going on up there John?" Rose inquired.

"Oh no, oh no…" He mumbled to himself.

The car came to a complete stop. This couldn't be good.

"Damn it!" John yelled, banging his head on the steering wheel in frustration.

Rose and Dave were silent, and I peeked my head around John's seat. "Everything okay?" I asked him.

John lifted his head and groaned. "We're out of gas…"

"Shit, what? No, we're fine. This is fine." Dave looked panicky.

"I told you we should have stopped at that gas station a couple hours back, but you didn't listen to me." Rose said. "Did you at least bring an extra container with you in the car?"

John furrowed his brow. "Uh, maybe? I don't remember actually."

Feeling a little restless after sitting in the car for so long I volunteered to go check the trunk for any extra gas.

I got out of the car and walked around back to the trunk and opened it up. There had to be some gas in here somewhere! I pushed aside our small overnight bags and rummaged through the other useless crap that was lying around back there.

No sign of gas anywhere.

Slamming the trunk shut again I sighed in frustration. What would we do now? The convention started tomorrow, and at the rate we had been going we wouldn't have gotten to the hotel until late. But now it was doubtful that we would make it at all!

I couldn't remember the last time I had seen a sign or exit on the road, but maybe we weren't too far from one now. The mountain couldn't be totally uninhabited, right?

I walked over to the driver's side window and tapped on the glass. John rolled down his window. "Did you find it?" he asked hopefully.

I shook my head. "Nada. Just a bunch of baking supplies and old ties back there. Your dad is kind of odd!"

"Oh dad…" He chuckled to himself. "But oh man! What should we do now?"

"Well, I was thinking I could walk down the road a ways and see if we're near a rest stop or anyone who might be able to help. There has to be someone else up here!"

"Hmm…" he thought it over.

"John!" I exclaimed.

"Oh! Yeah, well I guess there's nothing else we can really do. Do you want one of us to come with you?" He asked.

"No, I'm used to navigating around on my own. I'll be fine!" I told him. "If I don't see anything after twenty minutes or so I'll come back."

"Twenty minutes?" Dave leaned forward to look at me. "What the hell are we supposed to do until you get back?"

I shrugged. "I dunno! Why don't you make up raps or whatever it is you usually do?"

Rose and John rolled their eyes, praying Dave would not take my suggestion.

I laughed. "I'll be back!" I called as I headed down the road.

* * *

><p>I had been walking for about ten minutes so far and hadn't seen a single thing indicating that there were people around.<p>

Well this was no good! How in the world were we supposed to get out of here?!

As I walked and considered what we should do, up ahead I saw an old man coming out of the trees towards the road. He was opening up a mailbox that was on the side of the road.

I started running towards him. "Hey! Excuse me sir!"

He looked up at me. "Oh my, hello there." He called.

I stopped running and caught my breath when I reached him. "I am so glad I found you! My friends and I were driving along this road and our car ran out of gas, we're stranded!"

The old man looked surprised. "Oh dear, what a shame! You're lucky you caught me, I don't usually come down this way except to see if there's any mail. My home is a ways back on this path, but I should probably have some gas around somewhere."

I grinned. "Oh that's fantastic! I'm so sorry to trouble you with this, but we really needed the help."

He smiled. "No trouble at all, miss. Now why don't you go fetch your pals and bring them back here and I'll take you all up to my home and get you that gas. I'm sure you must be hungry too, so I would be happy to cook dinner for you all! It's been so long since I've had guests…"

"That's so generous of you! Yes, I'll run back and get them now!"

I started back down the road and waved to the old man as I went. What luck!


	2. Chapter 2

When the four of us reached the house of the old man, or Mr. Ampora as he had asked us to call him, we were more than a little surprised. The place was huge! It was basically a mansion in the middle of the woods.

And in front of the house was a great murky swamp. I had to admit, it seemed a bit foreboding even to me.

"Okay and the weird old man lives in a creepy mansion with a giant fucking swamp. Awesome. I am so not freaked by this at all in any way." Dave muttered to himself.

He actually looked very freaked.

Rose gave him a sideways glance. "Well I for one think it's pretty fascinating. Who knew all this existed out here?"

Mr. Ampora approached the front door and turned around to face us all. "Well, welcome to my home kids! I will show you to the living room where you all can sit and chat while I prepare some food for us. Please, make yourselves at home."

He opened the door and brought us into a large hall. Directly in front of us the hall stretched out to a grand staircase at the back, and to our right and left the hall branched out in both directions. Along the walls were golden light fixtures and classical paintings here and there.

And directly above us when we walked in was a large crystal chandelier. This was all so unreal!

"Wow." John looked around wide eyed. "This place is amazing!"

Mr. Ampora chuckled as he led us down the right side hallway. "It is a bit big for an old man like me to live in all by himself. And don't even get me started on the maintenance! But I guess it's my own fault for never having married."

"You live here alone?" I asked him.

He sighed. "Yup, just me. The property's been in the family for generations. I couldn't think of being the first to move out..."

"Well it's a lovely home sir." Rose told him.

"I'm glad you like it." He smiled, leading us into what looked like the living room. "Okay, well if you kids want to hang out in here for a while I'll go grill up some salmon. Feel free to watch TV or do anything you'd like." He waved and then disappeared back into the hall.

Dave looked out the window nervously. "Looks like sun's gonna set soon. Think we'll be able to get out of here before dark?"

"Oh relax, Dave." I said to him. "The old man seems nice and we're even getting a free meal out of this!"

John grinned. "Hey yeah, now we don't have to stop at some lousy fast food place for dinner like we'd planned!"

Dave groaned. "Well maybe I wanted to stop at an old run down greasy burger joint and have myself some kind of shit hamburger that fills my damn arteries with more mayo and grease than I could even dream of. Did anyone consider this very real possibility?"

Rose reclined on a velvet love seat. "I'm with Jade. Relax "bro." We'll have a pleasant dinner, he'll get us the gas and then we'll go."

"_Or _he'll poison us with the food and then slice us up to sell our organs on the dusty old geezer's black market." Dave said. " 'What'dya bring in today Jim? The heart of a strapping young man freshly carved out of his rock hard chest? I'll take it! My foul, bony-ass wife will love to roast this up for dinner in her effort to find the secret of eternal youth.' "

Rose rolled her eyes. "Yes, bravo Dave! I am sure that is exactly what will happen. You win again for most accurate prediction of the near future. Although, perhaps you'd like to discuss these underlying fears of having your heart eaten by an elderly woman? Tell me, when did these fears first begin to surface?"

John and I exchanged a look as Rose and Dave continued their snarky antics. "Why don't we see if there's anything on TV?" I suggested.

There didn't seem to be a remote for it anywhere so I had to get up and turn it on myself. It was an old set with dials to change the channels and volume. I flipped through the channels, but most of them were just static.

Since there wasn't much to choose from, we decided to just settle on watching a rerun of _Everybody Loves Raymond._ None of us really liked that show, but it was better than nothing.

* * *

><p>By the time we had finished dinner the sun had already set for the day and it was getting pretty dark out.<p>

"The food was great sir, thank you!" John told Mr. Ampora.

The old man smiled. "Well I'm glad you enjoyed it."

"Do you think you would be able to look for the gas now?" I asked him. "I wouldn't want us to intrude on you any longer than we need to!"

He glanced out the window. "Oh my, it's so dark out already. Are you sure you want to be walking back to your car now? I'd offer to drive you down, but my old truck's been out of service for some time now. Why don't you stay until morning? I have plenty of rooms you all can stay in! And I wake up early so I can have that gas ready and waiting for you when you get up."

The four of us exchanged looks. Dave was subtlety, but adamantly shaking his head. Rose's face was neutral, and John shrugged. Guess it was up to me to give the deciding answer.

"Um, well sure! If that's alright with you. It is pretty dark out..." I said.

"It's perfectly alright, like I said before, I can't remember the last time I had guests over and it's so nice to have someone else in the house with me. I'll just clean up these dishes and show you to your rooms." He told us.

* * *

><p>There were enough rooms in the house that we all got to have our own bedrooms to sleep in. Mine and Rose's rooms were next to each other's down on the left side of the mansion and Dave and John's were down to the right.<p>

After Mr. Ampora showed us to our rooms he told us where we could find the downstairs bathroom if we wanted to clean up before bed. There was a great big tub, big enough for several people, so I took a nice, long hot bath. It was super refreshing.

Now I was lying in bed, all alone in my room. It was a lovely room. There were two windows with a fireplace in between, a desk and chair, dresser, a large oak chest and two love seats. The other bedrooms were more or less the same except that Rose and Dave didn't have fireplaces, and Rose also had a fancy golden vanity in her room.

I couldn't quite fall asleep yet and was chatting with John on my phone.

**EB: **man this place is sooo sweet!  
><strong>GG: <strong>yeah it is really nice! ! ! !  
><strong>GG:<strong> it's so good that we ran into mr. ampora idk what else we would have done! !  
><strong>EB: <strong>yeah!  
><strong>EB: <strong>i hope we can still get to the con in time though :P  
><strong>GG: <strong>yes, me too  
><strong>GG: <strong>i have no idea where we are! ! D:  
><strong>GG: <strong>but hopefully we aren't too far  
><strong>EB: <strong>bluhhh if only i had brought a gps we wouldn't have gotten lost in the first place  
><strong>EB: <strong>so dumb! XO  
><strong>GG: <strong>it's not your fault john! ! !  
><strong>GG: <strong>these mountain roads could make anyone get lost…  
><strong>EB:<strong> yeah guess you are right  
><strong>EB: <strong>man, well i am soo tired! time to get some shut eye  
><strong>EB: <strong>night jade!  
><strong>GG: <strong>g'night john! ! ! ! :)

- ectoBiologist [**EB**]ceased pestering gardenGnostic [**GG**] -

After I was finished chatting with John I set my phone down on the nightstand next to my bed. I pulled the covers up over my chin and nestled my head into the soft pillow as sleep finally took me.

* * *

><p>I could barely see. The water was so murky.<p>

Wait, water? What was I doing under water?!

I felt weak and had trouble moving as I floated there. Was I breathing or was I holding my breath? I couldn't say. But it was cold, so, so cold.

Above me a shadow fell across the surface. A man was there. Did he put me here? Was this his fault?

I tried to scream but the water flooded my mouth and choked me, only bubbles escaping my throat. I knew this man had done this to me and he had to pay. I would get out of this watery prison and find him, I had to.

My eyes flew open, as I took in the surroundings of the bedroom I was in.

A dream? That was definitely the most bizarre dream I had had in a long time. It all felt so real! But I shook off the weird feeling it had given me and climbed out of bed, it was already morning.

The air smelled of bacon, I guess it was about time for breakfast! Mr. Ampora was really going out of his way to be a good host.

I walked out of my room and down the hall to the kitchen where I found my friends seated around a table while Mr. Ampora fried eggs on the stove.

He turned around when I entered the room. "Oh, good morning, good morning! Have a seat, I was just finishing up the last of the eggs. Help yourself to anything you see on the table."

I looked at the setup before me, there was crispy bacon, toast, fruit and orange juice laid out and an empty spot set and waiting for me next to Rose and across from Dave. I thanked Mr. Ampora and sat down and began to take what I wanted.

Dave munched happily on his bacon. "Looks like someone is in a better mood today!" I said to him.

"What are you talking about? I'm always all kinds of happy. Ain't no shit that can bring me down. Call me Mr. Smiles. I be passin' out sunshine and grins like it's chump change." He scoffed, piling some more eggs into his mouth.

I giggled. "Whatever you say man!"

I glanced over at John and noticed that he had barely eaten what was on his plate. "Hey John," I addressed him. "Everything all right?"

He looked up at me and forced a smile. "Yeah, yeah, I'm fine...just feeling a little off, you know?"

"Are you feeling ill?" Rose asked him.

"Maybe, I don't know. I didn't feel this crummy yesterday!"

"Perhaps you should go lie down for a spell. We can't have a sick driver on our hands!" She told him.

John nodded. "Yeah, guess you are right." He said and then got up and went back to his room.

Shortly after John left, Mr. Ampora set down the freshly cooked eggs and cleared his throat. "You know kids, there's something I should tell you..." He began.

We all stared at him, wondering what he was going to say. Whatever it was, it didn't sound like it was good news.

"I looked all over the place this morning and couldn't find my gas. I must've used the last of it when I took the boat out on the swamp last week." He rubbed the back of his neck.

"Oh, well that's alright." I told him. "Maybe, if you don't mind, you could take us into the nearest town and we'll buy some ourselves there!"

He frowned. "I wish I could, but I actually have to attend a memorial service in the nearby village up here on the mountain and could be gone for several days! And it's such a long and treacherous walk to town. If you don't know the way it can be very easy to get lost up here, and I'd feel better if I could take you there myself."

"Wait, so what does that mean for us?" Dave asked. "We're already missing the first day of the con.."

"Well, I figured I could leave the number of the closest service station with you and one of you can call them to bring you up some gas. Hopefully they could get someone out here today, but just in case it takes longer than expected you're welcome to stay here as long as you need to. Again, I'm so sorry about all this. I guess it was just bad timing!"

It looked like we didn't really have a choice in the matter. Either we waited for him to return and were stuck here for days, or we called the service center and the worst case scenario was that we missed the con but still made it home sooner than if we had waited. Especially with John feeling under the weather, there was no way we could all go walking around the mountain.

So, it looked like we would stick around for as long as it took for someone to bring us the gas we needed to leave.


End file.
